Mayor Mattie Parker is not legally required to abstain or recuse herself from city decision-making related to data centers because of her husband’s position at a firm that lobbies for a data center coalition, three experts in local government ethics told the Fort Worth Report.
But the experts all advised that Parker abstain anyway from such decisions, to maintain public trust and avoid the appearance of an ethical conflict of interest as data center developers increasingly seek to do business in Fort Worth and as the city council weighs regulations on the supercomputer hubs.
The unusual absence of a board or commission to independently review such ethics complaints at City Hall leaves it to Parker and other elected officials to maintain a greater degree of transparency with the public, experts said. Fort Worth is the only large city in Texas without a standing ethics review commission…